Tales of the Valkyries
by InfiniteFandom17
Summary: When the Dovahkiin is suddenly out of action, Lydia brings together the most powerful women in Skyrim - the Valkyries - to carry the dragon's banner forward. This is set in the same continuity as my other series "In the Days of the Dragon" though it takes place about 2 years beforehand. It's also more mature to NSFW, to be warned.
1. CHAPTER 1: FALLEN ANGEL

PART 1: FALLEN ANGEL

"You're sure this is the place?" Lydia whispered to the woman next her from darkness of the tree line. Before her was a shanty building out in the deep forest, crudely built from scrap lumber. The central door, by contrast, was iron-banded, and hewn from solid oak. Two large men in iron armor flanked each side of it, hands resting on their axe hilts.

"Count on it," Vex replied from the shadows. "Maul really went out on a limb for you. Believe me, if Maven had any idea I knew of this place, the Guild would be would be looking for my replacement. His too." She ran a hand through her blonde ponytail in thought. "Just remember, I was never here, okay?"

"Of course," Lydia said. "I owe you one for this. Several, in fact." Next to Uthgerd, Mjoll the Lioness nodded in Vex's direction. Lydia knew the warrioress had no love for the Thieves Guild, but this was a matter that transcended even that.

"Give 'em one for me in there," Vex said as she faded further back into the darkness and was gone. Lydia turned her gaze towards the door and the objective that lay behind it. She motioned for the others to gather in to hear her voice. She looked around at the women surrounding her; she could not ask for a more solid team to accomplish this dire errand.

There was Uthgerd the Unbroken, strong as the mountains, hard and cold as the fjords themselves; Mjoll the Lioness, master adventuress and worthy wielder of mighty Grimsever; Aella the Huntress, lethal and cunning as she was wild; Serana, once of the night blood, but now human once more; Rayya, the red storm, swift and unforgiving as the desert winds; and Karliah, the Dunmer Nightingale whose violet eyes shone through her dark mask and hood.

Each of them had the the power and tenacity to turn the tide of even the most dire battle, and now they were brought together tonight for a single purpose.

Lydia looked at each of them in turn. "You each know the score, and what it means if we fail. Let's try to do this quietly. Barring that, move fast, strike hard, but spare lives if you can. We don't stop until…" Her voice trailed off, and she could see the unspoken question upon their faces.

"What we…find in there will determine our endgame, but either way…this den burns tonight." _With how many still inside, remains to be seen_ , Lydia thought to herself. "Karliah, Aella…those sentries are yours."

Behind the slight berm at the treeline, the women took their positions. Aella unslung her dragonbone bow, while Karliah nocked a daedric arrow in the Nightingale bow. The rest drew their weapons and waited like runners at their start, read to move. Lydia readied Judgement, her glass battle-axe. It was too large to wield well in close those confines, but she was used to using it as more of a spear, or a pike, which would suffice for her purposes.

The archers drew their bowstrings taut. "I call this one the 'town guard,'" Aella whispered to Karliah a second before she let fly. The dragonbone arrow flew straight and true, directly into the bouncer on the right's left knee. He yelped, but the sound was muted as the powerful sleeping drug filled his veins and he slumped over. The other bouncer saw the dark metal arrow from Karliah's shot quiver into the wood of the doorframe by his head. It seemed a miss at first, until he put a hand to his neck and speckle of blood from the tiniest of grazing cuts stained his fingers. The drug took him, too, and in the span of three heartbeats, both men lay still on the ground.

"Move in," Lydia said and they all slid from cover. Karliah was there first, lockpicks already probing the front door's workings. Her hands were swift and sure, and there came an audible click from the door frame. Her hooded head turned and nodded to the rest of them.

They went in low and quiet. Even Mjoll and Uthgerd were adept at treading quietly in their metal plate armor. Rayya took the lead, with Aella behind her. Few could dispatch a foe faster than those two. In a tight, quiet line, the warriors negotiated the steps down and the long stone corridor that lay beyond like a parade of ghosts.

The corridor took a sharp turn up ahead. Karliah detached from the column and went to the fore, a tiny mirror on a wand in her hand. A quick glance in it, and she held up four fingers, then three followed by a fist. Lydia interpreted it as: _Four targets, total. Three are hardened._

Almost certainly this was the 'service' counter, likely behind an enclosed room behind a cage. Also a place where armed guards would likely station themselves. They looked to her for orders. With her eyes, Lydia selected Rayya, the two archers, and Serana to answer the question, one for each. She held Uthgerd and Mjoll back as rearguard. Should reinforcements arrive behind them, they would be hard pressed to get past those two.

Everyone held their breath as the chosen four sprang into action. Muted cries followed, then the sound of distinctive ' _ting-ting_ ' sound of Rayya's twin scimitars, Bloodscythe and Soulrender, being lightly struck together as an all-clear.

Lydia looked around the corner and found the scene not unlike what she imagined. The caged office set against the back wall and the wire was fringed with hoarfrost. Three heavies lay sprawled on the floor. Not one of them had even drawn a blade.

"We have a witness in the cage," Serana said to Lydia in a voice like dark silk. "I'm sure she'll be _eager_ to speak with you."

Lydia found the young Altmer woman on the floor of her office, shivering, her arms and legs encased in ice. The Housecarl knelt beside the elf and lifted her ebony visor, fixing the elf with a gaze as frosty as the ice itself.

"You know what I've come for," Lydia said. "Your next words will determine much of the rest of your life."

"D-d-down, the sec-cond corridor, th-th-third door on the left. P-please! I just w-work here," the woman said, shivering both from the ice and the fear.

"A wise decision," Lydia said, plunging the poison needle into the woman's flesh. "Sleep now."

Lydia motioned their way forward, and took the lead this time, creeping down to the second intersection. Now, she passed rooms separated from the hallway by dirty curtains. Candlelight came from behind many of them, along with sounds of those within – pleasured or pained, it was difficult to tell. These she ignored, for now. Dreams and dreamers came here to die, and her heart ached with the possibilities.

But she couldn't afford to make trouble for herself. Not yet.

Back to the wall, Lydia came to the crux of the second passing. Using the blade of her axe, she imitated Karliah's trick to see around the corner. Somewhere down the corridor, a muscular orc in a soiled loincloth parted the curtains of one chamber and shambled into another. Here, the place began to reek of stale bodies, night soil, and alcohol. This wing was for the heaviest of heavy users, and Lydia's face drew downward in a frown, lips forming a hard line across her face.

Closer she crept towards the third curtain, where the elf had indicated, a line of silent comrades at her back. All in one motion, Lydia stood, seized the curtain and threw it back while blocking the entrance. The smell nearly knocked her down, but the sight before her boiled her blood instantly. A skinny Breton man, also in his loincloth looked up at her from the corner. Even through his addled senses, he felt Lydia's menace and the green crystal blade that came to bear in her hands.

In the center of the room lay a woman on a crude mat, surrounded by empty mead and skooma bottles. She lay on her side, naked and dirty, dark hair matted to her head. The slight reddish tinge to her skin had gone sallow and was smeared with all manner of things that each burned in Lydia's mind like red-hot pokers.

She went to the woman and knelt by her side. The woman's sides move in and out like a bellows. She was still breathing! _Thank the Nine for that_ , Lydia thought. As for the rest, only time would tell.

Lydia heard Karliah gasp behind her. The others had entered and seen the state of things. There on the floor, vulnerable as a newborn babe, lay the slayer of Alduin, Harkon, and Miraak - the savior of Tamriel.

The Dragonborn.

"Numidia," she said. "It's me. It's Lydia. Speak to me, my Ysmir, speak."

The Dragonborn stirred, mumbled something incoherent, and then began to cry, drawing her knees to her breasts and making a ball of herself.

Lydia felt an involuntary tremor go through her, and stifled a rising cry in her throat. She wanted them dead. Everyone in this den of lost souls, everyone associated with its existence – dead before her, punished, judged. The burning in her mind became an inferno. But then she felt a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"Peace, sister," Aella said. "She lives still. The world rejoices."

Lydia didn't feel like rejoicing and shrugged away from Aella as she stood, rounding on her, but Aella stood her ground against the much larger woman, holding her gaze.

"Don't think I don't want blood to run like rivers for this outrage," Aella said, green eyes flashing like emeralds. "I would tear their throats out by the score if I thought it would help her." Aella cast a pitying look on the Breton in the corner. "But these people, they are the victims here."

"Get them all out, then," Lydia said, and then looked to Serana who had a hand to her mouth in shock. "Burn it down, all of it. Have your Atronachs collapse the tunnels. Leaving _nothing_ for them to take back." Serana nodded.

Just then Uthgerd appeared at the doorway. "Lydia, we found a rat trying to escape. You should come." The Nord's eyes took in the room, and her face hardened at the sight, but otherwise remained a tight, grim mask.

Lydia turned to Karliah. "Stay with her…please." She hadn't meant to snap it as an order, but seeing _her_ like that had shaken Lydia, more than she wanted to admit.

"Of course," Karliah replied in her smoky contralto. The Nightingale removed her own cape and wrapped it around the Dragonborn as Lydia left the room. The fresher air was almost dizzying in the hallway. Aella and Rayya went room to room, rooting people from their nests. Uthgerd took her to back to the counter, and the young woman on her knees with Grimsever's tip hovering near her throat.

She was raven-haired, much like her mother, with many of the same features. Half-dressed in her quilted jacket and dress, only a white chemise lay beneath. The woman's breath came fast, rising and falling quickly in her chest, and the look in her eyes seemed almost like a wild animal as they darted around the room.

"We caught her trying to beat a hasty retreat," Mjoll said. "But she knew better than to argue with the two of us, or the points of our swords."

"Ingun," Lydia said with disdain. "Ingun Black-Briar. I suppose I should have known."

"Hello, L-lydia," the woman said.

"Have you any _idea_ what you've done?"

This seemed to embolden Ingun. Her smile was filled with cruelty. "I helped her. She came to _me_ , broken, despondent. She wanted her demons silenced, and I made sure they were." Ingun's smile became some ugly. "She's a creature of incredible _hungers_. Insatiable. Nether Man nor Mer could satisfy them fully. I even took a turn or six, and she was kind enough to return the favor, and then some."

"Do you _want_ her to kill you, girl?" Uthgerd said to the prisoner as Lydia's face darkened.

"She wouldn't dare, she knows who I am, who my mother is. Killing me would be suicide for her, for all of you." Ingun looked Lydia directly in the face. "She wanted this, and somewhere deep down you it's true."

"By Shor, she's saved the world three times!" Mjoll exclaimed. "How could you treat her in such a fashion?"

"Yes, she saved us, and we're all so very _thankful_ ," Ingun said. "And now she deserves to rest, and to forget."

"And I suppose that she's made an excellent test subject as well," Lydia said. "All the while you made sure she could no longer be a threat to you, or your family."

"Two birds, one stone," Ingun replied. "She is remarkably resilient, such _depths_ of tolerance and strength. I gave her enough double-distilled skooma to fell a mammoth, and still she wanted more, more, _more_. And there I was in a position to fulfill those cravings. _All_ of them."

Lydia cuffed her across the face with her ebony gauntlet, not hard enough to break something, but enough for Ingun to realize she had crossed the line. The young woman swooned and spat out blood onto the floor. Her nose trickled crimson, but she began to laugh as she looked Lydia over.

"I just realized…you're wearing _his_ armor, aren't you? The very one who drove her to my arms in the first place…uhhh—" Her voice cut off as Judgement's gleaming edge pressed under chin. The barest flick and Ingun's throat would open nearly from ear to ear.

Lydia knelt down. They were almost nose to nose now.

"I'll make this simple for you: _Stay away from her_. If I hear that you've started another place like this, or that you attempt to take retribution upon _any_ of us, in any form" she leaned closer. "I will personally come and root you out of Mistveil Keep and end your miserable life in front of the entire court. And should your Mother try to stop me, the Rift will have need of a new Jarl." She lifted Judgement until the girl winced in pain.

"Do you understand me?"

She nodded, but Lydia persisted. "Say it."

"I-I understand," Ingun said.

" _Mean_ it."

"I understand!" Ingun sputtered. "She really did come to me, I swear! I bear her no ill will, just the opposite, I—". Uthgerd nicked her with the blade and let the drug take her.

"I, for one, have had enough of her boasting. Let us be away with the Dragonborn and wash our hands of this foul place," Uthgerd said.

Lydia stood over the architect of the Dragonborn's many degradations, axe in hand, and for the space of a few heartbeats could not decide whether to let the Black-Briar live, despite her tacit implication that she would be spared.

This time it was Mjoll who touched her shoulder, not in restraint but in friendship. "We all owe the Dragonborn, but this must hardest of all on you. We all understand that. A grave injustice has been done to her. Let us help you bear the burden to set this right...sister."

At this, the tears came. All throughout this ordeal – the waiting, the finding, even the _finding_ – she had never allowed herself the luxury of tears. Always, she had steeled herself, substituting her molten anger in place of the sadness waiting to engulf her. And now the deed was done, but the road to right this wrong was a long one, stretching out before her, near infinite in its scope. She allowed herself a generous half-minute to let the rains come, before she capped off her emotions again, and wiped them away with her ebony fingers.

With that, she went and relieved Karliah's watch, taking the Dragonborn in her arms. For a hero whose exploits were written in the stars, and would sung by the Bards for millennia, she was surprisingly light, almost weightless in Lydia's arms. Lydia took her from the accursed place and set her down in the grass under the stars, still wrapped in the Nightingale cloak of midnight.

Behind her, her allies herded or carried those from inside. Rayya gave the word, and jets of white fire sprang from Serana's palms, engulfing the ramshackle building. Stony figures burst out of the ground to either side of her, and then sank back into the earth. Minor rumbles shook the ground as they went to work. In short order, only a flaming crater remained as a testament that anything had been there at all.

 _Hold on_ , Lydia thought as she attached Jet, her warhorse, to the wooden litter that would bear the Dragonborn away. _My thane, my hero…my love._


	2. CHAPTER 2: STRONG TOO LONG

PART 2: STRONG TOO LONG

They gathered at Lakeview Manor, in the main hall. As steward, Rayya had given Llewllyn the bard a generous amount of personal leave and a bonus purse of septims before nearly shoving him out the door. She had also arranged for the Children of the Dragon there to study magic to be escorted north to the College of Winterhold to work with the specialists directly. Now, only the seven of them remained to guard the weakened Dragonborn.

As the Dragonborn's mate, Lydia had the right to sit to the left of the head of the table, but chose to stand instead. It had been two days now and Numidia had not regained consciousness, despite Serana's alchemical infusions to aid her recovery. Now they waited, each a silent caretaker and protector of Skyrim's greatest treasure.

"I'll be the one to say it, if no one else will," Mjoll the Lioness said from her perch on the staircase. "Why? What could cause her to go and debase herself like that, to simply give up? It flies in the face of everything I know about her."

"She was in pain over this business with the Ebony Warrior," Lydia replied. "Or at least that's what I surmise. My sources tell me the two of them dueled it out high in the mountains of the Rift. The way distant onlookers tell it, it was truly one for the history books, a reckoning of titans."

"The details now known only to one," Uthgerd said at the far end of the table, sipping from her mead horn.

"And what happened afterward?" Karliah said from her chair. She had taken off her hood, and her fingerless gloves were draped over the table near her untouched wine glass.

"She arrived in Solitude, weary but not dimmed or diminished," Lydia replied. "She gave me this armor and said that she wanted me to wear it. It was special to her, she said. At the time I laughed. She had been trying to get me to update my plate mail for some time, and thought ebony would suit me the most. She spent the night. Something felt off in her kiss, but I merely thought the road had been hard on her. I had no idea that she might…" Her voice trailed off.

At her place by the burning hearth, Serana touched her forehead in consternation. "So, it's true. The armor you wear is his. Her prize for defeating him."

"I didn't know," Lydia said. "She must have put it on, for it was too small for me at first, before it reshaped itself to me. The Warrior himself was said to be well over seven feet tall. I only knew that it bore particularly powerful enchantments, but I thought that either she had found it, or made it. Her skills in the forge are on par with her ability to imbue magic. I took it as a gift…from the one closest to my heart."

Many looked down into their various mugs, tankards and drinking vessels. "She left not long after," Lydia continued. "It was nothing new. I asked if I could come along, but I knew without her saying that she needed to travel alone. Two weeks went by, then a third. Even at the height of the war, when we were often separated, some word of her reached me no matter the circumstance. By the fourth week, I began reaching out, first to the holdings, then to the Companions," she said, looking in Aella's chair next to Karliah. "Then to the Dawnguard, and even the Guild." Mjoll frowned at the mention, but Karliah merely shrugged it away.

"No one had seen her, or knew where she had gone after she left Solitude. If Maul hadn't come across that unregistered manifest, and handed it over to Vex, I might still be searching for her."

"We all would," Aella corrected. "Each of us here loves the Dragonborn, or owes her in ways we cannot repay. You were wise to bring us together in this search."

"True, I am not the only one with a concern for her health and well-being," Lydia replied, perhaps a little tartly. "But isn't that just it? We all know different sides to her. Rayya and I were assigned to her as Housecarls. She rescued you from your crypt," she said with a nod to Serana. "If not for a random bar brawl you might have never known her, Uthgerd, much less fought by her side. Aella saw first-hand the wild beast at her core. Mjoll, when you met her, you were vehement in your hatred of the Guild. You didn't realize she was a member. By the time she returned Grimsever to your hands, she was the Guildmaster."

"And so much more," Karliah said in her smoky Dunmer accent. "All things to all people, it seems."

"Yes, and I still haven't fully come to terms with that…aspect of the Dragonborn's personality," Mjoll admitted. "But even in her most questionable acts, Numidia shows a sense of honor and fairness. She knew of my feelings for the Guild, and yet she never once led me astray or showed me anything but friendship. She reworked Grimsever to be better than ever before. That's what I mean: I've never known her to harm an innocent, or a child, or end a life that she didn't truly believe needed to end. And yet, she gave herself –willingly— to a monster."

"Who treated her monstrously," Rayya said. Her grey facial tattoos seemed to give her anger frightening new dimensions.

"Exactly, so why would she do this to herself? Doesn't she know what she means to us, her friends, and to the people of Skyrim?" Mjoll asked.

Lydia leaned on the table, and let a long breath out. She felt suddenly old and tired. "Perhaps that was the problem."

"What do you mean?" Serana said, warming her hands behind her. "She's been a rock, strong as any mountain, even when the whole world was arrayed against her."

"And you fear that the Dragonborn has, what, tried to be a rock for too long?" Uthgerd asked. "Is that it?"

" _The World-Eater wakes, and the wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn_ ," Lydia said, quoting the Book of the Dragonborn. "We know the prophecy, we _all_ know it." She looked up towards the bedroom on the second floor and the hero who slumbered there. "After Helgen, she could have just as easily stolen a horse and disappeared into the crowds of Markarth or Solitude, and let the shards fall where they may. But she didn't. The moment she slew Mirmulnir at the Western Watchtower, her life was no longer her own."

"What are you saying, then?" Mjoll asked. "That we drove this to her? We _love_ her, you most of all."

"Perhaps I do," Lydia said with a pointed looked at Aella. "But all of us, all of Skyrim, and indeed all of Tamriel, have pinned our collected hopes and dreams on her. She may bear the soul of a dragon, and some of the proclivities that come with that, but she has no more the mental resolve to deal with grief, death, and loss as the rest of us. I believe her encounter with the Ebony Warrior drove her over the edge. How far over remains to be seen."

"He was a coward," Rayya said with disgust, and everyone looked at her. "Too afraid to live on, scared he might die in his sleep. As if the Alik'r are allowed into Sovngarde, regardless of how we meet our end. What a selfish request it was, and what might he have cost us all if he had somehow won?"

An uneasy silence fell at this proclamation. Lydia knew Numidia had tried to talk the Warrior out of the duel, and had likely even tried to recruit him to their efforts with the Children of the Dragon. But it hadn't worked, and Numidia had killed him all the same. Had that been the straw that had broken the dragon's back?

"She's a killer," Aella said. "It was what she was born to do; I sensed that the moment I saw her put an arrow cleanly through a giant's eye. She is without match in battle, whether with bow, or sword, or spell – none can stand against her. Indeed her very destiny was to slay _dragons_. When I…shared my blood with her, I was amazed, even jealous of how strongly the wolf came out in her. Whole ages have come and gone without someone of her gifts stepping foot on the battlefield, even though…"

"She never enjoyed killing," Lydia finished for her. "A necessary evil, perhaps, but ultimately each life she took, even Ulfric's, cost her dearly." Lydia shook her head. "The fates were cruel to match such a peaceful soul with a destiny demanding so much destruction."

Uthgerd frowned, which was never far from her normal expression anyway. "Peaceful? Are we even talking about the same person? She was a force nature, like a flood or an earthquake, when she held the gates of Whiterun, and again when she smashed through the byways of Windhelm. I have never seen its like, before or since."

"I was there as well," Lydia countered. "And you didn't have to hold her as she cried in the aftermath, when the confusion and doubt would take her, leaving her wondering if she'd done the right thing. She didn't hate the Stormcloaks. Shor's Throne, Uthgerd, she _agreed_ with much of what drove them. If it hadn't been for Ulfric and his treatment of non-Nords, and her Imperial upbringing, she might have joined them."

Lydia shook her head, and firelight caught a glistening around her eyes. "After each battle she would tear off the petals of red mountain flowers, one for each of the lives she had taken, until there was a crimson pile at her feet, and she would wish that Talos would see their souls safely to Sovngarde." They looked at her in disbelief, but Lydia could feel fire in her blood. "Yes, _Talos_. And she would ask for their forgiveness, because they had only done what they felt was right, and their sin was only the misfortune of crossing her path in battle. Now, did you know _that_?"

Uthgerd's sternness softened, and she crossed her armored arms across her chest as though to ward off the cold. It seemed to resonate around the room. "I did not. Forgive me, Lydia. I meant no disrespect to you or her. I suppose her helmet conceals far more than just her face."

"We can all be thankful for her merciful nature," Karliah said. "Without it, Skyrim would far worse off. But I must ask the question: What do we do now?"

Rayya fiddled with the bread and cheese before, but did not eat of it. "She's right. The Dragonborn's presence has been a great deterrent for those who wish to undermine Elisif's throne, not to mention all manner of other threats. Pirates, bandits, and other destructive elements. Skyrim is still recovering from the war. Without her in the field, what's to stop a return to anarchy? I've already heard rumblings about that street gang in Falkreath."

"And smugglers near Solitude," Mjoll said.

"And a new death-cult emerging in Markarth," Serana said.

Lydia straightened to her full height.

"Us."

They stared at her. There was no doubt that she had their attention. "We rise to the challenge. And when my wife is back on her feet, perhaps we let her rest a while longer. Each of us has learned something from her in our travels. I think it is time to put those lessons to their greatest use."

"Forgive me, shield-sisters," Uthgerd said. "Mighty though we may be, we are a poor substitute for the Dragonborn."

"True," Serana said. "But not every threat must be answered by the power of a demi-goddess. What regular mortals could truly contend with all of us, if united?"

Lydia's heart soared. The decision had been so clear, and now Serana was on side with it. Lydia looked around the room. She could see it on their faces as they considered it, the possibilities growing in their minds. It only made sense.

"We'll need to keep her condition a secret," Karliah said. "And ensure that's she's protected while she can't defend herself."

"The magical wards on this house are considerable," Rayya said, "as are the defenses against unwanted intrusion. So long as she remains inside, she should be safe. As for her caretaking…" Rayya looked to Lydia.

"I'll send for the shaman, Frea of the Skaal tribe," Lydia answered. "If anyone can maintain a vigil and nurse Numidia back to health, it's her. And she can be trusted to keep it quiet, I have no doubts."

"Brynjolf can help as well," Karliah said, looking directly at Mjoll. "You may not care much for him, but we've both taken a sacred vow to defend our shadow-sister. He's as good with a blade as he is with a lock, and secrets are his specialty."

Lydia looked around the room at the group taking shape. Each of them was a master of their respective field, but the divisions were clear: Mjoll hated thieves, even noble ones like Karliah. Serana still had some prejudice towards Aella's wolf-blood, despite not being a vampire anymore. Uthgerd didn't like anyone easily, and preferred to work alone. Rayya's vows as steward and housecarl conflicted with extended periods away from Lakeview Manor. Lydia had once competed with Aella over the Dragonborn's affections.

"If we do this, let me make this clear," Lydia said. "Whatever axe we might have to grind with each other, we put it aside for however long it takes. All of us are here because of our love and sisterhood with the Dragonborn. Let that be our rallying cry to each other, our reason to join in common cause. Agreed?"

"So long as we're sure that no one persona conspires against another, I'll accept that," Mjoll said.

"Don't worry, I'll keep my hands off your valuables," Karliah said, then added: "Aside from those I've already pocketed." The Dunmer smiled broadly, and it looked good across her sharp Dunmer features. Everyone else frowned at her, Lydia included.

"Joking, of course," Karliah said, holding up her hands. "I make it a point of professional pride not to take from those I'm working with."

"I take her at her word," Lydia said, looking around. "Anything else?"

"We'll need a leader," Aella spoke up. "I suppose you think that's you." The challenge there was unmistakable.

Lydia turned to face her, squarely. "Yes, I do."

"All of us are quite capable to lead," Aella replied. "Why should your voice be heard over mine, or Rayya's, or Uthgerd's, or anyone here?"

A fair question. Each woman here was a champion in her own right. What _did_ give Lydia the right to lead amongst a field of Skyrim's finest?

"I know Numidia best," Lydia replied. "Not just the face she presents to the world, but the _real_ her. If we are truly to stand in her stead, we need to know how she would handle the situations that face us, and act accordingly. I'm the only one here who can do that."

A long look passed between Lydia and Aella, unblinking and defiant from them both. The huntress looked on the verge of protesting, but then Lydia saw her straighten in her chair instead.

"I'll accept that," Aella agreed. "Count me in amongst my sister…valkyries."

Lydia looked to the others, feeling the momentum behind her suddenly. Rayya gave a slow, serious nod, as did Karliah.

"I'll do it," Serana said, and Lydia was glad to hear her say it out loud. "For her."

"Why not?" Uthgerd said. "I suppose I can drink my mead anywhere; Hulda will save my spot at the Bannered Mare."

All eyes turned to Mjoll on the stairs. Of everyone, she took the greatest issue working with a member of the Guild. The Lioness stood with a clank of her resplendent Nordic plate and drew Grimsever, reversing the grip to hold the point down before her.

"I swear by the honor of Grimsever that I will see it done in the Dragonborn's name, without malice or hesitation."

Lydia let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. It was done. With Mjoll's vow, these… Valkyries were a now a force.

"It is decided then," Lydia said. "I will remain here with Rayya until Frea can arrive. We have perhaps two weeks before we can be certain we can step away from Numidia's side. In that time, we need to know what we are up against." She addressed them each in turn.

"Uthgerd, perhaps the Bannered Mare _is_ the best place for you for now. Trade and rumors run through Whiterun like its stream. If there's anything you pick up from caravans or travelers, make note. Aella, any information the Companions can find would be most welcome as well."

She turned to Karliah, "I'd like you to head to Solitude. I'm sure these smugglers have no intention of playing by the Guild's rules. I want to know what they're about…who runs them, what they're bringing in, as much as you can find out." Karliah answered by putting her fingerless gloves back on and flexing her hands in readiness.

"Mjoll, head back to Riften, and keep your ears open. If there's even a hint of talk that the Dragonborn isn't in play, laugh in their faces. Tell tall tales if you have to, but keep it quiet, and watch out for Ingun. I doubt she'll make waves, but be ready in case she does."

The Lioness sheathed Grimsever with a nod.

Finally, Lydia turned to Serana. "Go to Markarth and see what you can find on this cult. I would bet my warhorse that it has something to do with Molag Bal, and you are the one most knowledgeable about his following."

"Unfortunately, that is true," Serana said. "But I hope you're wrong about the Bal being involved. After what happened with my father, I'm not exactly on his favored list anymore."

"Everyone eat a hearty meal before you go; there's plenty in store. Ride hard and be ready to move when you receive my signal." Lydia lifted a goblet of mead and held it aloft.

"Daughters of Skyrim…to the Dragonborn, and to the Valkyries."

They lifted their glasses together in union with each other, as one. Now the real work began, and they would have to face it together, without the hero who had, unintentionally, brought them all together.

And yet, as Lydia looked around the room at her new sisters, pride welled up in her chest. They would carry the banner of the dragon into the fire, and their enemies would come to rue the day they first thought to bring their darkness to Skyrim's shores.


	3. CHAPTER 3: CRUEL FATE

[Author's Note: This is where it gets pretty NSFW. Just fair warning, okay? ;) ]

She could still taste the blood on her tongue. In the heat of the moment it had tasted like bliss, so filled with vital fluids and vigor, with life. She had taken their leader while he had stood his ground, even when her soul-shattering howl had split the air a moment before she'd pounced.

But now the blood tasted vile, salty. It had made her want to retch partially from the taste, and partly from the flash of images that plagued her. Her claws slashing into their flesh, the warm red spray of their blood that followed – all of it was as exciting as it was repugnant.

Then Aella was there, wrapping her arms around her. The huntress breathed heavily into Numidia's neck, and her words were heavy with building passion. "You were _magnificent_. I have never seen such raw, righteous savagery visited upon a host so deserving of it."

Confusion swirled in Numidia's mind. She felt infinitely tired, drained, soiled. The world spun before her eyes. "But…but all those people. We tore them apart. I…I ate their _hearts_."

"They would have killed us both if they had had their way," Aella said. Her jaw flexed with her growing need as though in pain. Her breath came heavily. "You made them your prey. You sang Lord Hircine's song with their blood. You are an unmatched predator," she said, kissing at Numidia's neck. "You are the perfect killer."

A sweet pain filled Numidia to her core. Perhaps it was her destiny after all.

"Have me now," Aella pleaded. "Have me beneath the stars, before their blood is even cold. Pursue me and feast upon my flesh. Do this for me, sister. _Make me your own!_ "

Aella kissed her and the blood of their victims mingled on their lips. The primal creature that Aella's blood had unleashed within her sprang forward to eclipse Numidia's mind. Her rationality was lost to the wind, and she fell into the huntress' embrace with a powerful hunger.

When she pulled back from the kiss, she was in a stone bedroom. A cheery fire burned in the hearth, which illuminated the curves of Astrid's body lying near to her. Numidia ran her hand down the woman's side, and across her bare hip. Gods, she was a matchless athlete, like a dancer or acrobat. It must be a sin to have a figure like that. Astrid's skin held the blush from their lovemaking with a fine sheen of sweat that was slowly evaporating by the heat of the fire.

"Well, well," Astrid sighed. "I wish I could say I'm surprised at the result. Then again, you wolves are always such _beasts_ in the bedroom. Arnbjorn may thank you when he returns. I'll be sure to put some of your lessons to good use."

"Mmmmmm…" Numidia said, leaning closer, resting her cheek against Astrid's neck. "Perhaps we can show him together."

"Why, you little naughty minx," Astrid said, playfully pinching Numidia's backside. "You're going to spoil us both if you're not careful."

Numidia reached up and cupped the other woman's breast, kneading it slowly. "Gladly. I'm glad you invited me into the sanctuary, Astrid. I hope you are, too."

"More than you know," Astrid replied, brushing a damp strand of hair from Numidia's forehead. "Rarely do I even consider taking a woman into my bed, but you…well, I'll happily make an exception." Astrid pulled back to look Numidia in the eyes.

"But more than that, you are natural at what we do," Astrid told her. "I saw that when I put you through your paces at the shack. I've never seen anyone own a kill like you. Such professional detachment at the final moment, such precision – it's like watching an artist paint a masterpiece. Truly you are blessed by Sithis. You were _born_ to kill, my dear." She laughed, and Numidia gave her five quick kisses, one for each tenet. "A few more like you and I may have to call us the Dark _Sisterhood_."

"There are no others like me," Numidia said.

"Oh, yeah? Prove it," Astrid said, as the Dragonborn's hand slipped ever downward.

"Fine, you asked for it."

The fire in the corner burned bright, but then diminished by shades. It became a campfire, surrounded by ice that glittered in the orange-yellow light. Numidia looked at the man across from her. Even sitting cross-legged, he was taller than some men at full height. His dark helmet rested on the rock beside him as he stared into the fire in meditation.

Numidia pulled her knees up to her chest across from him and adjusted her cloak up around her shoulders against the cold mountain air.

"I'm not sure why I agreed to this," she told him. "What you ask of me…it's madness. If you were Orsimer, I might understand, but you're not. You still have your strength. Why squander it or give it away? Do you realize how many people you could help with your gifts?"

The fire painted his Redguard features into a stern mask. "I have. Many still live that would not have otherwise if not for my intervention. At times I used my strength to help those I deemed worthy, whether prince or beggar. At other times I used them selfishly for my own glory, or to fill my purse to overflowing. At the Battle of Gilane I claimed so many centuries of life from the Alter host that they trembled at my passing, and the survivors pale at the mention of my name. Some named me the Ebonarm come again, and for a time I believed them."

He stroked his short, black beard. "I have seen wonders and horrors that might give even you pause. Once I glimpsed the Whalebone Bridge and Shor's Hall beyond. Though my blood is of the sands, I spent every moment since making myself worthy to enter that golden realm."

"But surely your worthiness is already proven," Numidia said. "A hundred times. A thousand times. Why challenge me?"

"Your deeds are legendary, Dovahkiin," he replied. "They will echo throughout the ages, but you are still so young. You don't yet know the thief of time, to feel that you rapidly approach the moment when your body will begin to rob you of the fire that defined your youth. I stand at such a precipice." He threw a handful of leaves into the fire. They caught, burning suddenly bright, but then blackened and withered away.

"I sit before you at my pinnacle. I am stronger than I have ever been, surer of limb and blade than ever before. In a dozen seasons, I doubt I will remain so. Here and now, at my height – is that not the perfect time…to die?"

"You are missing my _point_ ," Numidia said, and a trace of her Thu'um rumbled in her voice like thunder. "You ask me to kill a man who does not deserve it, who has done me no wrong. Perhaps your gifts will fade with time, but I see in you all the good you could still do in this world." Numidia looked down. "The world could use a little more good in it." _No thanks to me._

"If it makes you feel better, I will be trying my hardest to kill you, too," he said. "Shor will know if I do not fight to my fullest."

"It does not," she said tartly. "And if I ever get back to Sovngarde, I'll have a word with Shor about his entrance policies. But are you so afraid that you won't die in battle that you are willing to stain _my_ hands with your blood?"

"Yes," he answered. "I asked, and you answered my call. If you did not intend to honor my request, then why did you come to Last Vigil at all?"

Numidia stared into the fire before answering. "The slim hope that I could dissuade you from this course." She heard the defeat in her own voice. No matter her argument, no matter her overture, his will was set, and a queasy feeling settled in her stomach. More blood spilled, more that would not easily wash away.

"You cannot," he replied, "though your attempts to do so are honorable." He turned to face her, the first time in hours that he had taken his eyes from the fire before him. "It is my time to die, Dragonborn. You are the only one I know of who could aid me in my final plea." His stony face softened at the edges in the firelight as he looked on her.

"That you, a living demi-goddess, wish me to stay is the greatest accolade I could ever hope to achieve in this life, and I am grateful for it. Yet, since you hesitate, I must have your final word in the matter: Will you meet me in glorious battle tomorrow, showing no mercy and receiving none, to fight unto whatever end the gods deem fit?"

Numidia felt a lump in her throat as she looked at the last of the leaves, burning away in the fire.

"I will."

"So be it," the Ebony Warrior said. "You have my thanks, Dovahkiin."

The dawn began to rise, only it was not the sun. Numidia lost herself in white light for an eternity, drifting in nothingness, until the veil fell away. Her eyes fluttered open. She was in a soft bed with velvety green covers. On the wall opposite her hung an iron mace on a display plaque.

 _Lakeview Manor_ , she thought.

The mace had been something of a joke between her and the Jarl, her 'blade' of Falkreath as Thane. She tried to turn her head and found it more difficult than it should be. Now her body remembered the abuse she had put it through as Lydia came into view at the bedside. The dark-haired Nord was holding Numidia's hand.

"Welcome back, love," she said. "You gave us all quite a start."

Everything came back now, like standing under a waterfall. What little strength she had vanished beneath that weight, and her heart was crushed beneath its yoke. Tears welled up in her eyes and they would not stop.

But then Lydia's strong arms encircled her, radiating love. She was an island that Numidia could cling to, and the Dragonborn held on for her life. Her world shook and rumbled, but Lydia was there. Lydia was always there. And then the leaden grey clouds parted, and there was only weakness holding in her place.

"Did I hurt anyone?"

"Only yourself," Lydia answered. "Ingun's concoctions have taken much of your strength, for now. We…I…feared you would not wake up."

Numidia squeezed Lydia's hand. She could feel how weak a gesture it was. "I'm sorry. I just…I just couldn't take it anymore. I needed to lose myself."

"But _why?_ " Lydia pleaded to her. "Why would you turn your back on Skyrim, on me? Living is pain, Numidia, I know this more than most. Whatever it was, could you have not sought me out for comfort and solace?"

Numidia looked up at her wife. That dark hair with a war braid worked in at her left temple, that statuesque face, those perfect eyebrows, her cupid's bow lips – it was the face that had claimed her heart.

"I couldn't face you," Numidia said. "My shame was too great."

"You could have died."

"A part of me wanted to."

"Why, because of that stupid duel?"

"Partially," Numidia said. "We fought, yes, and I killed him, just as he asked. He nearly took me with him. I was covered in grievous wounds when he finally fell. But…before that, the night leading up to it…I…gave myself to him."

"Ohhh," Lydia said, stroking Numidia's hair back from her forehead. "I've never objected when you've wanted a man before, or anyone else for that matter. Life is short, and we must seek comfort where it can be found, love."

"It's not that, my heart," Numidia answered. "I lay with him four times that night. The first I offered as a last request for us both, as one of us would not see the setting sun. The second and third times, I thought I could renew his spark for life, to entice him to stay amongst the living. But I knew it was pointless. The fourth and final time, I had hoped that he might leave me with a child. But it did not quicken with me. And that was the worst of it…"

Lydia tried to comfort her, but Numidia shook her head. "Even in the midst of the death I caused, I could not create life. It told me what I had always secretly believed: I'm nothing more than a killer. I serve no other purpose than to _end_."

Numidia looked up at Lydia, her shame laid bare, tears running down her face. "You must think me a fool."

"No, love," Lydia replied. "I think you are human. You did what you thought was right - what you always do, even if it tears the heart from you. It is the quality I love best about you, my dragon. That, and your perfect hips."

Numidia gave a weak smile at that last part. "Thanks for noticing."

"Frea is here now," Lydia said. "She'll take care of you while I'm away. Until you're back to your usual self, the Valkyries will continue the work you started. We can't have the province go to hell every time the Dragonborn goes on a bender."

Numidia laughed, which turned into coughs. "Don't make me laugh, it hurts. Who are the Valkyries?"

"People we can trust: Uthgerd, Mjoll, Karliah, Rayya, Serana, myself…and Aella." Lydia let that last one linger in the air.

"I see," Numidia said. "And they know of my most recent…misstep?"

"They helped me pull you out of there, and before you ask, no one judges you. Each of us has been at our breaking point in the past, and it was usually you who pulled us up, dusted us off, and got us back into the fight. Now they are willing to return the favor."

Numidia's heart felt large and warm in her chest. "Then I'll have to make good on their generosity. Now it's a matter of honor." She straightened the folds of her nightgown, primly and properly, her old self reemerging from the depths of her soul.

"That's my girl," Lydia said. "Rest up. Heal. And you'll have another familiar face to keep you company while I'm gone."

A tall man in leather armor strode in at that moment, his face hidden by a hood. Yet, Numidia knew him even before he spoke.

"Hello, lass. Good to see you're still in one piece."

"Hello, brother," Numidia said to Brynjolf. "I take it your my jailer, to ensure that I stay for the treatments?"

"I prefer the term 'protector,'" the master thief replied. "But we can't have any sudden outbursts of heroics until the good shaman says you're in the clear. The Dragon's Heart thinks there's a better than even chance that you'll try to run before you can walk."

Numidia threw up her arms, even though they felt like leaden clubs. "Fine. I'll take my bedrest and stay out of the way until I'm better."

"And perhaps beyond that," Lydia said. "You've been on the road nearly every day for the past four years, out there doing what has to be done. You can relax, my love, we will carry your banner. "

Lydia stood and her ebony gauntlets went to fists at her hips.

"Besides, even the Dovahkiin needs a break once in a while."


	4. CHAPTER 4: THE LIBERATING OF FALKREATH

PART 4: OF THE LIBERATING OF FALKREATH

 _Separating truth from embellishment is difficult where the Valkyries are concerned. We have only one written account of their actions at Falkreath, one Marcus Inarius, an Imperial merchant trapped in Skyrim due to Darius Tullo's injunction of the Pale Pass. Inarius stood watching the event unfold upon the steps of the Dead Man's Drink, a tavern in that time. He writes that he was so close to the clash that his boots were splashed with the Tullo's blood. Oral accounts exist of it also, the additions to the Poetic Edda, and even the song,_ Banner of the Dragon. _Their veracity is suspect, however, but still serve to underscore this moment in Skyrim's history. Seven of Skyrim's most blessed daughters rode into to Falkreath that day in the name of the Dragon, steel in their hands, and fire in their bellies. Whether the tales of their heroism have grown in the telling or not, the liberation of Falkreath speaks for itself._

Brother Athalos, Jerall Abbey

526, Fourth Era

Six guards slowly tracked them, faces hidden behind their helmets, as the Valkyries rode through the stone archway. Not all of them had shields, which was a giveaway. Those shields that did bear the white stag with tangled antlers upon a dark blue field were faded and dirty. Two of them wore Stormcloak armor, but refitted to look like armor of the Hold guard. Most of the Valkyries had been in the war, noticing it immediately. Silently, the battle-sisters passed news of the threat between themselves with a tilt of the head, or a turn of the rein.

Lydia led them upon her dark black warhorse, Jet. What a sight they must have been, armor and hilts set alight by the morning sun, she thought. Lydia had ordered them to present the enemy with a pristine, parade sheen of a Legate's review.

"I count seventeen," Rayya said at Lydia's side. "Perhaps more lie in wait."

"Almost certainly," Mjoll replied next to the Redguard. "And it seems they know our business here."

"I can appreciate the boldness of the deceit," Karliah said as she adjusted her cowl, "but the craft is lacking. It's all in the details. That one on the corner is wearing shoes, not boots. Even the rawest guildling could see through this mummer's farce."

"Everyone stay focused," Lydia said. "If it comes to steel, you know what to do."

Seven horses with seven women astride them strode down the dusty lane, stopping before the towering heights of the Jarl's Longhouse. The false guards slowly closed off the street behind them. Another group blocked their path farther down.

A man with missing teeth and a long, jagged scar down his cheek appeared on the Jarl's porch. He wore fine robes, and Lydia wondered if he had bothered to wash the blood out of them from their previous occupant before donning them.

"Let the Jarl come forth!" Lydia said, loud enough that everyone gathered could hear, while bringing Jet sidelong to the stairs. "I would speak with him."

"And who are you to demand such a thing?" the scarred man shot back.

"If you were truly the Siddgeir's steward, you would _know_ who I am," she replied. "Where is Nenya to greet me, and show me proper accord?"

"She is…away," the scarred man said. A rumble of laughter echoed through the assembled guard. "And the Jarl does not appreciate demands from those who do not know their place. Leave, now. I will not ask a second time."

Lydia unlimbered Judgement from her back. It's green crystal edge glittered like a gemstone.

"Nor will I."

This gave the scarred man pause. He swallowed hard, and tugged at the edge his collar. He looked to the guards, who drew their swords half-way from their scabbards.

"We are many," the man said. "Only your death can come of this. Accost me and I will have you bitches put d—"

The scarred man's head came away from his shoulders so quickly that his expression did not change as he kissed the tops of his own boots. The wooden rails of the longhouse were doused with red and his body slumped to the ground.

"Well, so much for diplomacy," Serana said. One of her palms crackled with fire, while the other glistened with frost. Arrows materialized on the strings of Aella and Karliah's bows. A wave went through the false guards. Some completed the drawing of their swords, while others took a step back like frightened game.

Lydia flicked the blood from her axe blade and wheeled Jet around to face the crowd. "Would anyone else care to fling insolence and insult my way?" She scanned the crowd. Seeded among the ruffians were actual townsfolk, who sensed what was about to happen. They quietly disengaged from the front ranks and retreated.

"Yes, yes, you're all very clever and brave, tra-la-la," a man's voice said from down the street. Lydia turned as the ranks down the street parted. On the other side of the tavern, a man in a legionnaire's kit sat mounted on a pristine red destrier. His panoply was complete, save for steel helmet and chainmail coif in place of the standard _gale_ a.

"Tullo," Lydia said, and acid nearly dripped from her lips.

"In the flesh," he replied with a mock bow. "We've known you're coming for a while now, Lady Lydia. Tell me, where is the whore?" He gave a dry, obviously fake cough. "Your wife, I mean. It's been some time since anyone has glimpsed the Dragonborn here in this shit-stain of a province. Truth be told, if I had a made a vow to Mara to bed a horse-faced cunt like you, I would abandon Skyrim, too."

Lydia's mouth tightened into a thin, grim line. Uthgerd whistled behind her, "This one's just _eager_ to die, isn't he? Either he can't wait to know what's on the other side, or…"

Shadows moved along the rooftops. "Or he feels confident of his odds," Karliah finished for her.

"You still have a traitor's tongue, Tullo," Lydia called across the span that separated them, replacing Judgement across her back. "I'll be sure to nail it next your phallus this evening as the wolves gorge on the rest of you."

"My tongue and my cock, eh?" Tullo said, then spat on the ground. "At least you have a mind to keep the best parts. But unfortunately, they both have an appointment with the lovely Serana tonight. Sorry, you understand."

From the corner of her eye, Lydia saw Serana turn towards her. "Make it hurt," she said.

"Then in the name of the Dragon," Lydia began as Tullo mimicked her with his mouth to his men, "Slayer of Alduin, Harkon, and Miraak, and Legate of the Legion, I hereby sentence you, and your cohorts to—"

"Fine, whatever—just kill her already," Tullo said.

Archers appeared on the rooftops as those on the ground surged forward. Tullo himself took a _pilum_ from where it had been thrust in the dirt and spurred his destrier forward.

"Valkyries! Battle calls!" Lydia cried as she lowered her ebony visor and readied her lance. Around her, the Valkyries were in motion. A dragonbone bow sang in harmony with the Nightingale bow, and where their arrows quivered to a stop, so ended a life, also. Grimsever's hum joined the battlehymn, as did Uthgerd's greatsword. The ground rumbled with Serana's magic as some saw a flash of frost or fire, and then darkness. Only Rayya did not head into the frey as Jet's hooves tore up the street in passing. The Redguard expertly dismounted and disappeared inside the longhouse, her twin scimitars unsheathed and ready. The Jarl's life was now in the Housecarl's capable hands.

For Lydia, the foe was before her, bearing down. As she charged, Lydia held the lance high, and the black pennant unfurled and caught the air of her passage. Made of darkest cloth, it bore the stylized silver dragon that had come to be her wife's coat of arms.

Time slowed for Lydia as she readied her ebony shield. The red destrier kicked up sand and grit that crested like the ocean upon rocks. The plates of Tullo's _lorica_ jangled together and then apart with each movement as though in slow breaths.

 _Dragonborn, dragonborn, by her honor is sworn_ , Lydia sang to herself. She had heard that song so many times in her travels, played slowly with introspection on a bard's lute in the splendor of the Blue Palace, or sung by painted men circling bonfire upon the heath, their bass voices joining together in glorious communion.

 _To keep evil forever at bay._

She had never tired of it in her youth, nor when the subject of that song came into her life. Now she sang it as a battle-prayer, a paen to the flawed demi-goddess who loved her.

 _And the fiercest foes rout, when they hear triumph's shout._

Lydia lowered her lance at the last instant so that Pullo could not divine her target.

 _Dragonborn, dragonborn…_

She watched with curious detachment as his pilum cleared past Jet's head, the steel point angling towards her throat.

 _…for your blessing we pray!_

She caught the tip with the edge of shield, forcing his guard open so that her lance caught him directly in the sternum.

The slowness vanished and the world moved with blinding speed. Tullo was ripped from the saddle and crashed hard into the dust. Her lance splintered, but the wind had been against her so that the shaft shard floated back into her hand. Men closed around her, but Jet reared up and gave a mighty kick behind them. Her steel-shod hooves sent two men to their doom, and a third struggling under the corpses of his dead companions.

Lydia kicked one leg over the saddle and slid off her mount, shouldering another man out of the way.

"Hold fast," she told her horse and kicked Tullo in the jaw as the traitor struggled to stand. Lydia plunged the lance shaft into the ground so that the pennant would not touch the ground. Here, she would make her stand.

Tullo rolled away and spat a wad of blood and saliva into the dirt, then drew two longswords. Judgement came away from her back in answer.

"Not bad," he said of his own blood. "So the bitch-hound has teeth." He came at her, but Lydia parried low, then high, sweeping his dexter blade around so that she checked him in the mouth with Judgement's bronze-gold hilt.

"More than you, now."

Despite his bloodied mouth, Tullo smiled ghoulishly. In another life, he had been an officer, one of the best, until he had betrayed his men to the Stormcloaks during the war. Many of his men were deserters from the Legion, who had formed the Southern Brotherhood to strangle the Pale Pass, and Skyrim's critical lifeline to the rest of the Empire.

"Shall we dance, my lady?" he said with another mocking bow, then his blades were upon her, though turned aside by her ebony armor. One found a space between the overlapping plates of her upper arm and pain blossomed there. Tullow spun out of it, ducking below Judgment's passage, and a similar pain appeared behind her right knee.

Pain was an inconvenience. Her training had readied her for it, taught her to control it, to face it on her own terms. But Tullo did not escape unscathed. As he uncoiled, she stepped into his guard drove the boss of her helmet into his face. She felt his nose break, and as he staggered backward, his rounded helmet was askew. He got his feet under him, though, recovering almost instantly.

Now he wasn't laughing or making taunts. His blue eyes were wild with pain and anger. And the next time he came at her, there was none of the dancer's finesse that had set her to bleeding.

That's what she had been waiting for.

She ignored his blades, she swept forward to meet him, bringing Judgement down in a diagonal arc with all the strength her training and the blood of the Nords had given her. The axe blade swept aside his sinister blade, cleaving through his armor mail, opening him from base of his neck to right side, just below the ribcage. Her stroke followed through and his crimson spray fell upon the door of the building where they had clashed, and a man in rich garments who had stood in front of it.

Tullo stumbled back, and fell in the street, never to rise again, blood bubbling at his lips. Lydia turned from the spectator of her duel. Men came at her from all sides, but she carved through them, her back to the flag she had planted. There were more, many more than just the seventeen that Rayya had spied.

A soul-chilling howl echoed through the lane in the direction of the longhouse. Something large with dark fur drove through the men there with reckless abandon. And as men appeared to replace the fallen, the creature came towards Lydia's stand. Blood dripped from Aella's fangs as she took up station next to the Dragon's Heart, her claws now striking in tandem with Judgement. Then Mjoll appeared by her aside, followed by Uthgerd.

Lydia spied Karliah upon the rooftops, raining down fury, dispatching archers as she went. Only the dull boom and fevered screams told tale of Serana hemming in the Southern Brotherhood around the peripheries. None of them would leave this place alive. These men had set an ambush, only to have it flipped around on them. Now they were trapped in the town with _them_.

"We could use one of your wife's shouts right about now," Mjoll said, as Grimsever penetrated a man's chest and came out the other side. "We are pressed too tight."

"Then allow me to open the way," Rayya said, coming up from behind, Soulrender and Bloodscythe flashing her hands. "The Jarl is secure, Lydia. Only this rabble remains."

"Then let's end this," Lydia replied. The battle-lust inside her had set her blood to flames. She did not possess Numidia's _thu'um_ , but her shout came out as a fierce warcry, which set her foes' bowels to water. She redoubled her attacks with a ferocity her sisters, even Aella, were hard-pressed to match. Blood flowed, and lives ended as Skyrim's glorious daughters rallied around the Dragon's banner.

Then, like a storm breaking, the Southern Brotherhood was no more.

And the Valkyries still stood.

Bruised and bloodied, they stood. Dented and hobbled in the wake of their reckoning, they stood, until Serana's healing light bathed them in its radiance. And when they were whole again, they went as one to the longhouse. Lydia threw open the doors.

Everything was where it should be. Jarl Siddgeir slouched upon his throne, with his steward to his left and his housecarl to his right. While Nenya carried the ethereal, timeless grace of the Altmer with her, Helvard stood fuming, his wrists raw and red from the binders that had held him in captivity. A dozen guards, the true guards of the hold, stood helmetless with drawn steel before the throne.

"The Dragon's Heart arrives, and with her our salvation," Siddgeir said. "But where is my Thane in our time of need?"

"Alas, my Jarl, she is in the wilds of Solstheim, putting down the last of Miraak's dragon cult." Lying to one's Thane was a great sin for Housecarl, and multiplied tenfold to tell an untruth to a Jarl, but Lydia did so without hesitation. She wasn't from Falkreath, and her bond to the Dovahkiin outweighed any allegiance she owed this Jarl.

"Indeed?" Siddgeir tilted his head to look into the rafters. _He suspects something._

"Then we of Falkreath Hold we wish her well in her endeavor, and we thank you and your companions for your timely arrival. We must take step to ensure that no band of bandits, however organized, assails us so in the future, or takes us unaware. Isn't that right, Helvard?"

The Housecarl looked down. "Yes, my Jarl."

"A purse of septims will be bestowed upon each of you, of course, but that seems a shallow gift for so great a display of valor." He looked again to the rafters again in thought. "Perhaps it is time. Yes, I think it is." He looked to the seven Valkyries arrayed before him.

"Our court has often had its difficulties in keeping a Thane, your lady wife being the shining exception, of course. Thanes are the standard by which all others of the Hold are measured, the example set before all. You see, I watched you from the top windows as you defended the Dragonborn's colors. It is therefore my honor to bestow upon all of you the rank and title of Thane of Falkreath, with all the rights and privileges of that rank."

The Jarl smiled. "No other Jarl has eight Thanes. I'm sure to be the envy of the realm. But come, there shall be a feast in your honor come the night's moon. We shall tend to putting our town back to rights, and then the meat and mead shall be in abundance."

Lydia bowed. _The others won't be so easy_ , she thought. Tullo had been too brazen, and had faced them in the open. The smugglers and the strange worshippers in Markarth might not be so willing to take the battlefield with Valkyries standing in opposition. Certainly not after today.

Today had been a message, a warning to all those who thought to break High Queen's peace or defy the order the Dragonborn had established in Skyrim.

 _One down, two to go._


End file.
